Fellow Australians come to the rescue

Kim McKerrow is almost home, but the physical and emotional trauma she encountered in Kuta has left her with a long road ahead.

The Melbourne 23-year-old has burns to 35 per cent of her body mainly her back and arms and shrapnel embedded in her legs and shoulders.

At St George Hospital, Sydney, where she was admitted after flying home on a Qantas flight yesterday, she was on morphine and other painkillers, drifting in and out of nightmares, said her mother Sue.

Of his daughter's burns, her father Ron McKerrow said: "She'll be all right. It's just a shock. She's a pretty kid, I'm just glad it's not her face."

Today she will fly to Melbourne for the final leg of her trip home. Doctors have declared her able to travel and the shrapnel will be removed at a Melbourne hospital. She will need to have her burns dressed daily.

The McKerrows will never forget the sight of Kim, blood running down her face, burnt hair, arms and back, arriving back at their hotel room in Kuta, together with her Melbourne friend Lynley Huguenan, brought to safety on the back of a Balinese man's motorbike.

"They were in such incredible shock, I think the pain didn't get through. They were hysterical. Kim fell to the floor. Lynley had been wearing a boob tube and she was badly burnt. It was just horrible. I thought they'd been bashed," Mrs McKerrow said.

"She's pretty good considering what she's been through but I think she's going to need some counselling. She is very nervy and anxious and doesn't want to trust anyone. She kept saying 'don't talk to people, mum, you don't know who they might be'."

Mr McKerrow rushed from hospital to hospital in Bali trying to find some help but with facilities overwhelmed, the main help had come from a fellow Melburnian, a woman who ran a store and was in Bali on a buying trip.

"She was just marvellous. She and her husband just took over helping anyone and everyone. They got us on the Qantas flight. They were wonderful. They . . . got the really sick girls on the first Hercules."

Back at the hotel another Australian woman and hotel guest had broken into the kitchen and was helping pack ice around Ms McKerrow while her sister dialled other guests' rooms seeking a doctor. Eventually, Mr McKerrow got a hotel vehicle and took his daughter to the Bali International Medical Centre for a morphine shot.

There were two paramedics aboard the McKerrow's Qantas flight and Ms McKerrow travelled hooked up to a drip suspended from the business-class section ceiling.